


out of the cold

by lowfuellight



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 03:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15921482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowfuellight/pseuds/lowfuellight
Summary: zuko cut ties with his pureblood extremist family in the summer and to his surprise he is now spending the winter holidays with his new group of friends, away from hogwarts. his crush on sokka (who he'll be sharing a room with) might make the next few weeks awkward, but if only getting away from his family's agenda were that easy...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> wazzup im writing two zukkas at once cuz lifes just like that huh. this is my hp au hope yall enjoy xx (comments r nice)  
> thanks to artemis for helping me come up with the title cuz i rly suck at titles!

Zuko hadn’t thought that he’d be leaving Hogwarts for Christmas this year. He couldn’t quite believe it as he followed the Waters siblings down the snowy path to Hogsmeade, his head buzzing as he sat with them on the Hogwarts Express.

He sat in front of Sokka, who rapidly put his arms up behind his head and kicked his legs up on the seat beside Zuko, so that Zuko was stuck between Sokka’s feet and the window. His stomach leapt slightly at the familiarity.

Katara sat next to him, but not too close, under the guise of not wanting to be in contact with her brother’s shoes.

The carriage then filled up quickly - soon Aang sat beside Sokka, only to make room for Suki who nestled into Sokka’s side. Then joined Toph, who budged herself between Katara and Sokka’s feet, looking quite pleased with her positioning. The carriage was full, full of people Zuko had done his best to stay away from for the better part of his life. And he couldn’t remember the last time he had been this happy.

“Hey, broody,” Toph said, elbowing him in the bicep. “Share with the group.”

“Huh?” Zuko asked.

“What are you brooding about?”

“Oh. I’m not brooding.”

“You kind of were,” said Suki with a wry smile. Zuko liked Suki. She was a Gryffindor, but Zuko liked her.

“He’s not brooding, his face is just like that,” Sokka said, flashing his teeth at Zuko and nudging him with his foot. That was one thing Zuko was having a hard time getting used to — in this group, they were all pretty physical. They didn’t mind touching each other, whether it be a friendly nudge, an annoyed push or a heartfelt hug. He was still learning to act like it was no big deal. The Waters siblings were the two who were the most careful around him, although while maybe Sokka had sensed Zuko’s discomfort (a thought that embarrassed Zuko deeply), he guessed that Katara’s motivations were different.

“Will you play Exploding Snap with me?” Aang asked, and Zuko noticed that he was shuffling his pack of well-worn cards. Zuko was planning on getting him a new set over the Holidays.

“Sure,” Zuko said, sounding nonchalant.

“Yes!” Aang said, fist bumping the air. Sokka perked up. 

“In-flight entertainment, yes please!” he said, withdrawing his arm from around Suki. “Aang, switch with Suki.”

“Love you, too,” Suki said, rising from her seat. 

“Want to go find the trolley?” Katara asked her.

“That’s a good idea, actually. Give the boys their space.”

“I’m coming, too,” Toph said, jumping from her seat. She hated Exploding Snap. Although she tended to revel in anything destructive, Exploding Snap just made her bitter. “You need to help me pick out the most disgusting item there.”

Katara wrinkled her nose but said nothing, and the three girls left the cabin as Aang set up his and Zuko’s match. Exploding Snap was sort of his and Aang’s thing, if he were being honest. He had been introduced to the game upon entering Hogwarts, but had never taken much interest it until recently, when Aang had dealt him into a game with Sokka and Katara. He liked being fast. And Aang, although he seemed like a dopey kid, was actually lightning fast and had some great reflexes. He was hard to beat. Sokka said watching them play was like watching the world series. They should do it professionally, he insisted. While there was a World Cup of Exploding Snap, Zuko believed Sokka was slightly overselling their snapping abilities, although he didn’t really mind.

The games started off silly — Sokka talked as they played and Aang giggled when the cards fell off of the book they were using as a table, and Zuko even let out random barks of laughter. He managed to get soot all over Sokka’s face, which Sokka hadn’t been too happy about, but it was pretty funny. “Thanks for an excuse to do magic, though,” Sokka said, using a quick charm to get all the muck off. Aang had to help him a bit, because Charms wasn’t Sokka’s strong point... and then things got serious.

The cabin was silent but for the sound of cards, sudden explosions, and angry mutters from the two players. Sokka watched carefully, his chin propped up on his hands. Zuko had a hard time filtering him out sometimes. At one point during a had to make the effort not to focus on Sokka’s fingers, of all things.

By the time the girls returned, Aang and Zuko were tied, having won twelve games each. Zuko’s fingers were beginning to blister, and Aang had a stripe of soot on his forehead.

“So this is the decider!” Suki said, sitting down beside Zuko and looking over his shoulder.

“Sshh!” Sokka said before Aang or Zuko had to. Zuko was sure he could feel Katara roll her eyes.

“You’re doing best out of thirteen?” Toph asked from beside Aang. She was brandishing what Zuko took to be the most disgusting thing on the cart. It was huge, yellow and had orange spikes. It did not look edible.

“SSHH!”

Katara opened a packet of licorice wands fairly loudly and was subjected to an icy stare.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Let’s just tie,” Aang said, sitting back. These days he was eager to please Katara, who seemed to be irreparably pissed at him. Aang insisted that it wasn’t Zuko’s fault, but Zuko couldn’t help but feel like it was. “We can pick it back up on Boxing Day!”

“Ugh, you guys are so lucky that you get to see each other over the Holidays. Meanwhile, I’ll be stuck at home helping mother dearest party plan and go on about how I shouldn’t be a dragon keeper.”

“You are attending the Ministry Ball, though,” Katara said in an effort to cheer her up. “I would die to be in your shoes.”

“That’s because you’re a dork.”

“Hey!”

“Listen, my offer still stands...”

“I’m not using Polyjuice potion,” Katara cut her off, looking sideways at Zuko, as if he were going to rat her out for something she wasn’t even going to do. “It’s illegal.”

“But, it’s Harry Potter,” Toph singsonged. “Hermione Granger! You love her. You said you’d let her be your mother.”

“Toph!” Katara squeaked, turning red.

“You what now?” Sokka said.

“I just think she and dad would get along- Oh, Toph, if you can get anything signed-“

“Yeah, yeah,” Toph murmured, falling back into her seat and biting the head off off a Chocolate Frog rather unceremoniously. “Listen. They’re all the same, Tara. Rich, annoying and stopping me from living off of my couch all night. I had plans. But no, I’m fifteen now, old enough to go to a boring party and smile at strangers. My one night off over the holidays... poof.” 

Katara looked like she wanted to argue, an argument Zuko had heard before — Potter, Granger and Weasley were war heroes and role models — but instead she bit her tongue and settled for, “Well, it’s only a few weeks. We’ll be back at Hogwarts before we know it.” She seemed wistful.

Zuko had no idea how the conversation about inviting him home to the Waters’ over Christmas had happened. It had definitely occurred before Sokka approached him with the offer. Aang, Katara and Sokka would have had to discuss it at least. He guessed that Aang had suggested it. After all, Aang had been his first friend within the group. Sokka was in Zuko’s year, and they were both prefects of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff house, respectively, but they had never talked much until Aang had brought them together. The conversations they did have in their past were not something Zuko was proud of.

As for Zuko’s past with Katara... he tried not to think about it.

Suki, he’d never had a problem with. They’d never gotten into any altercations. A few years ago, there had been an... incident. And Suki had been there. A lot of other kids had been there, but he remembered Suki the most. She had just looked so disappointed in him. And it had scared him that he could let down practical strangers as well as close friends. It had hurt more than the curse that had cut off a chunk of his skin over his left eyebrow. Of course, that scar was no longer visible, as it had been covered by another.

Toph barely seemed to know anything about him, and was probably the coolest out of all of them. She didn’t look at him with pity, like Aang sometimes did, and she didn’t act careful around him like Sokka did — either for Zuko’s benefit or Sokka’s, Zuko wasn’t sure. Toph treated him as one of her own, and he hoped not to let her down.

“So, will Aang make Prefect or not next year?” Toph asked now, and from then on the conversation flowed more easily. Katara pretended she wasn’t too bothered about becoming a Prefect, and Toph countered that there was no point to it, seeing as Sokka gave them access to the fancy bathrooms whenever they wanted, anyways. Zuko wondered if the blush on Sokka’s face was due to the same memory making Zuko’s own cheeks heat up regarding the Prefect bathrooms. He wished he didn’t have such an ugly crush on the other boy. That would make the next two weeks a lot easier.

 

Zuko was to stay in Sokka’s bedroom. When Aang came on Boxing Day, Sokka would sleep on the sofa, relinquishing his bedroom to Aang and Zuko. The idea of sharing a room with Aang didn’t bother Zuko at all. They saw enough of each other in the common room at Hogwarts, and Zuko knew that he would sleep safer in the Waters house than he had ever slept in his own home since his mother left. Sure, Katara hated him, but he highly doubted that she would go so far as to murder him in his sleep. His own sister, however…

It was the first week of holidays Zuko was worried about. He was sure he didn’t talk in his sleep, but it wasn’t like he could cast a Muffliato on himself to be safe. What if he let something slip? No, that didn’t sound like him.

Yes, it did.

He remembers a reading he did on a wizard, Mad-Eyed Moody, they called him. ‘Constant vigilance’ had been his catchphrase. Zuko was going to borrow that catchphrase for the holidays. He hoped Mad-Eye wouldn’t mind. The guy had seemed pretty scary.

His stomach was in knots by the time they arrived at King’s Cross. This was where they would all split up. Toph would be whisked away by one of her parents’ staff, Suki would disappear into a crowd of sisters, Aang would head off towards to his adoptive family.

And Zuko would meet Mr. Waters, Sokka and Katara’s father. He had absolutely no idea of what to expect.

“It’ll be fine, dude,” Sokka said to him as they climbed out of their compartment. Zuko looked to him in surprise, and Sokka gave him a crooked smile. “My dad’s cool. You’ll like him.”

But will he like me? Zuko wondered. See, Zuko’s family was famous. Or infamous, depending on who you asked. They were not, like a lot of dubious characters nowadays, former supporters of You Know Who. But they did have a lot in common with the aforementioned group. And Mr. Waters was a muggle. He worked at the Ministry dealing with muggle-magical relations, and Zuko had seen him in the Prophet every so often. In every picture the man had looked terrifying.

Sokka and Zuko were the last of their group to reach the platform, a mess of families reuniting and carts being pushed from here to there. It had been decorated for the Holidays, just like it was every year, and Zuko suddenly felt a pang of homesickness so great he thought his knees might buckle underneath him.

His father wasn’t here, he would not be here. Azula had left Hogwarts a week early, due to Ozai pulling some strings for Merlin knew what reasons. Zuko was alone here.

“Bye, losers!” he heard Toph say, but it took a moment of looking around to pick her out of the busy crowd. Sure enough, she was flanked by a tall wizard and witch, both wearing black and looking equally unamused at their client’s outburst.

“Bye, Toph!” Katara said, a few steps in front of Sokka and Zuko. “Can you see dad?” she asked her brother. Sokka squinted and Aang got on his tiptoes.

“Not yet...” Sokka said. Then he stopped. “Oh, no.”

“Oh my god,” Suki groaned. Zuko soon spotted Mr. Waters having a lively conversation with Mrs. Kyoshi, Suki’s mother. Behind Mrs. Kyoshi, four of Suki’s sisters (Zuko still wasn’t sure how many of them there were in total) stood giggling into their hands.

“This is not good,” Sokka said, beginning to hurry towards them.

“Nuh-huh,” Suki agreed, trailing after him. Katara spared Zuko a look before following, and Aang put a hand on Zuko’s shoulder.

“Mr. Waters is a totally cool guy. He wouldn’t have agreed to let you stay if he didn’t want to.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Zuko said, and he had an embarrassingly hard time finding his voice. Mr. Waters had spotted his children and was pulling them close. First Katara, who wrapped her arms around his neck, and then Sokka, who put his arms around his father’s middle. Merlin, the dude was tall. And big. And could probably crush Zuko in an instant, muggle or no.

“C’mon, let’s go over there,” Aang said, grabbing onto Zuko’s arm and pulling him along. Zuko’s feet dragged, but Aang seemed not to notice. “Then I’ll look for Andy and Fiona.”

Zuko meant to say, Ok, but nothing came out.

Soon they were in front of the Waters family, and Mr. Waters was towering over them and smiling.

“Aang!” he said, nudging the boy’s shouder. “You’ve gotten tall! How’ve you been?”

“Alright, Mr. W,” Aang said, giving Mr. Waters a two-fingered salute and beaming. Then, Mr. Waters turned to Zuko.

“And you must be Zuko.” He held out his hand, and Zuko took it. The older man’s palm was warm and dry, and Zuko realized his own was sweaty.

“Yes, sir.”

“No need for that,” Mr. Waters said, laughing, but his eyes were kind. He dropped his hand. “We’re glad to have you for the Holidays, son. I’m sorry you have to share with Sokka, the boy snores pretty bad.”

“The boy does not,” Sokka said, and beside him Suki looked like she strongly wanted to argue this point.

“We’re leaving,” she said instead, taking Sokka’s arm. Zuko looked at his feet as Suki’s sisters began singing, “Goodbye kiss, goodbye kiss!”

He joined Aang and Katara in waving goodbye to Suki, and then Mr. Waters asked over Andy and Fiona. The search for Aang’s parents began, and Zuko pretended not to hear one of Suki’s sisters whispering, “Who was dark and mysterious? He’s hot!”

“Anna, oh my god,” Suki laughed in response as they got further away. That wasn’t a blow to Zuko’s ego or anything.

Andy and Fiona were picked out of the crowd after a decent few minutes. They were chatting with Theo’s dad. Theo was alright. He and Aang had started hanging out a bit more since he’d gotten adopted. They were second cousins now, or something like that. Zuko knew Theo from a few parties from his childhood. Theo’s dad used to work alongside Ozai, but he had gotten out. The guy had been an inspiration to Zuko. Until then, he hadn’t even known that was a thing you could just do: leave. That had been before his mother, of course.

All the parents exchanged pleasantries as the kids stood awkwardly beside them. Sokka began talking to Theo about Quidditch and Zuko noticed Aang pulling Katara to one side for a word.

Andy and Fiona, it seemed, were not up-do-date on Zuko’s holiday plans. They watched him out of the corner of their eyes as Mr. Waters talked to them about his morning at the Ministry, and when Zuko began talking to Theo, they seemed outright alarmed. Mr. Waters noticed.

“Have you met Zuko? He’ll be staying with me and the kids these few weeks.”

“Oh, really?” Fiona asked. Andy was now looking at Zuko as if he had just smelled something foul.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Zuko said, bowing ever so slightly. At least Mr. Waters was impressed.

“Hakoda,” Andy said, lowering his voice. “Does his father know about this arrangement?”

“I trust that he does,” Mr. Waters said diplomatically.

“Is the boy friends with your son, or...?”

“Yes, he is. I’m sure that’s the reason Sokka invited him.”

Sokka was no longer talking Quidditch with Theo. He put an arm around Zuko’s shoulders and smiled at Andy and Fiona.

“How is your father, Zuko?” Andy asked.

“I wouldn’t know, sorry,” Zuko replied, his jaw tightening. Sokka squeezed his shoulder.

“Ah,” Andy replied. “I see.”

“We good to go?” Aang asked, coming up on Zuko’s other side.

“Yes, I dare say we are,” Fiona said. “Lovely seeing you, as always,” she nodded at Mr. Waters. “Happy Holidays!”

“Happy Holidays,” Mr. Waters replied. Aang and Sokka hugged quickly.

“See you in a few days, buddy,” Sokka said. Then Aang hugged Zuko. It happened so fast Zuko hardly registered it, and then Aang was off.

“Bye, guys!” he beamed, then jogged to catch up with his parents.

“We’ll be going too, I daresay,” Theo’s dad said. He talked old-fashioned like that. Zuko had always thought he was kinda weird.

“Have a good Christmas,” Mr. Waters said.

“You, too.”

“See ya, T!” Sokka said. Zuko waved, and was fairly sure Theo’s dad winked at him in response.

“What did loverboy want with you, huh?” Sokka asked Katara, whose lips were pursed.

“Sokka,” Katara said, annoyed. “Don’t call him that.”

“What? He loves! He’s a loverboy!”

“You  _ know _ what,” Katara said. “And he just wanted to give me his Christmas present.”

“Christmas present? But we’re seeing him the day after.”

“He said... nevermind. Where’s the car parked, dad?”

“A few blocks from here,” Mr. Waters said, pulling out a packet of what Zuko recognized as cigarettes. “Ever ridden in a car before, Zuko?”

 

Zuko had never ridden in a car before.

“You do not have to grip that so hard,” Sokka said, muffling his laughter.

“I think I do,” Zuko muttered between his teeth. Everything about the whole contraption seemed so... metal. It was blue, long and small, attributes that Zuko did not understand the meaning behind. Did the shape influence the performance? He wanted to ask, but he was afraid to. There was no magic holding it together, no magic keeping it in motion... it was unsettling and Zuko was terrified for his life and apparently doing a poor job of concealing it. Sokka and Katara seemed relaxed enough; Sokka was sitting with his leg hoisted up on the middle seat and Katara was fiddling with the radio in the front, switching between a grand variety of muggle stations. Zuko fleetingly wondered what his dad would say about all this, then he pushed that thought away.

“Dad’s promised to teach me to drive this Christmas,” Sokka said once they were out of the city. “You should totally come along!”

Zuko was not sure if he wanted to get in one of these contraptions piloted by anyone who didn’t have years of experience under their belt, as Mr. Waters had insisted he had.

“To teach you? So you don’t know yet?”

“Well, it’s not like I could learn any earlier. Feet don’t reach the pedals!” He kicked his feet in demonstration.

“Pedals?”

“Maybe Zuko would feel safer if we told him how it works,” Mr. Waters suggested from the driving seat.

Zuko did not feel safer after learning how it worked.

“Dude, are you gonna throw up?” Sokka asked, smile gone from his face.

“No, I’m good,” Zuko said, even though he wasn’t.

“Just five minutes to go,” Hakoda said from the front seat.

“We’ve got bags,” Sokka said. “Travel sickness is totally a thing. Tara would throw up all over the place when we were little.”

“Sokka!”

“It’s true!”

“I’ll be fine,” Zuko insisted.

“Well, here are the bags if you need them,” Sokka said, taking a handful of plastic baggies from Katara, who only briefly spared Zuko a look.

Zuko only barely registered the streets they drove through, increasingly more homely. Brick houses with small front laws and garages. Not too ornate, and each house took care of their own front yards, that was obvious. While one house had a magnificent arrangement of hedges and petunias, another merely boasted grass in need of a trim.

“This is our street,” Sokka said, watching Zuko with worry. Zuko just nodded, not too eager to open his mouth any time soon.

Mr. Waters stopped the car and Sokka jumped out of his side of the car. He helped Zuko out and lead him towards the front door while Mr. Waters and Katara dealt with the bags.

“Show him the bathroom, Sokka,” Mr. Waters called out. Of the Waters’ house Zuko was only able to register that the door was painted blue before being ushered inside — beige carpet, cream-coloured wallpaper and then a teal bathroom.

“If you need anything, just shout…” he said, and melted away.

Zuko sat on the bathroom floor opposite the toilet bowl and breathed until he felt better. He had never been in a muggle household before, and although the bathroom was pretty similar to a wizards’ one, there was something off about it. Everything was so static and… plain wasn’t the right word, because that word sounded rude. He didn’t recognize the labels on the shampoo bottles or toothpaste, but he felt comfort in how unlike anywhere he’d been before it was. His father would never find him here.

“You good?” Sokka asked once Zuko emerged from the bathroom. He found the family in the kitchen, sifting through cabinets and putting pots on to boil.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, unsure of where to put himself. Next to Sokka stood an elderly woman in an apron who was eyeing Zuko up cautiously.

“Zuko, this is Gran Gran,” Sokka said quickly, and Gran Gran began to stomp towards him.

“So you’re the Zuko I’ve heard so much about,” she said. “Been giving my grandkids some trouble, ey?”

She was a short woman, but her movements and voice carried a lot of power. Zuko felt truly fearful under the gaze of her startling blue eyes, and found that all he could do was stammer at the old woman.

“Gran Gran,” Sokka said diplomatically, and from behind the old woman Mr. Waters put his hands up in a what-can-you-do gesture.

“People can change,” Gran Gran said, “so long as their core is good.” And she poked Zuko’s chest so hard that he staggered backwards.

“Jeez, Gran Gran, the dude was just sick,” Sokka said, stepping between them.

“Here, take this,” Katara said, and it took Zuko moment to realize that she was talking to him. A glass of water lay on the counter between them, and she was holding a tiny pink pill between her thumb and finger. “For the nausea.”

“Oh, okay. Uh…”

“It’s muggle medicine. Not poison.”

He could be imagining it, but he was almost certain he saw her smile. Maybe she’d ease up on him if Gran Gran took over being wary.

“It’s good, dear,” Gran Gran said, and, oh? They were friends now? “Have you ever tried sea prunes?”

“No, m’am,” Zuko said. Aang had warned him about the sea prunes.

“M’am!” She laughed. “So polite! Hakoda, how are those potatoes doing?”

“Almost got ‘em all, ma.” Mr. Waters turned to Zuko, potato peeler in hand. “If you don’t like it I have burgers on standby. It’s Sokka and Tara’s favourite, we always make it when they come home from school.”

“That’s really nice of you,” Zuko said, and Katara gave him a curious look.

“Thanks, I try,” Hakoda grinned.

“D’you wanna take your stuff to my room?” Sokka said, nudging Zuko’s shoulder with his.

“Yeah, thanks. If that’s okay.” He added quickly.

“You  _ are _ polite, huh?” Sokka said, as if only just noticing. Zuko supposed he hadn’t really had cause to be polite around the Waters before. “C’mon, then. You can lie down, too, if you’re still feeling dizzy.”

Zuko was about to say thank you, but he bit his tongue.

“Okay.”

 

The staircase to the upstairs part of the house was narrow and lined with photographs. Some were moving, but most of them weren’t. There was a picture of Sokka and Katara as toddlers that Zuko found delightful, but he didn’t slow down as he followed Sokka to his room.

“So, yeah,” Sokka said as he pushed the door open. “This is my bedroom. Dad brought out the mattress, cool!”

The walls were painted a dark blue and muggle posters hung from the far wall. A lot of the floor was taken up by the spare mattress, but there was still room for Sokka to stand awkwardly by his desk. Zuko peered at the shelves just to do something with himself, and found that he was staring at a small action figure of a man in a black cape.

“Batman,” Sokka supplied. “He’s a superhero, you know.”

“Oh.” Zuko only vaguely recalled what superheroes were. He was fairly sure they were fictional.

“Yeah.”

Zuko moved onto the picture frame that was stood next to the man-bat thing. A woman in black and white smiled at the camera, but it wasn’t a casual photograph. Shadows enveloped her face, the composition somehow giving the still image movement. “Is that your mother?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“It’s a muggle photo.”

“Yeah, dad took it. He used to be a photographer. Back in Alaska.”

“That’s cool.”

“His stuff is all over the house, so you’ll see it. Even the bathrooms.” He rolled his eyes, but it was fond.

Zuko couldn’t imagine Ozai having such a romantic pursuit. This black and white photograph of Sokka’s mother, although unmoving, had a soul.

Iroh, he had an artistic side to him. He loved music and reading. Or at least, he used to.

“I may have to lie down, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, no, not at all. Whatever you need. You’re the guest.”

Zuko must have pulled a face, because Sokka laughed.

“Yeah, don’t worry, this whole thing is weird for me, too. I have Zuko Hamada in my house! I’m giving him my bed!”

“Oh, no, you can take your bed.”

Sokka shrugged and flopped onto the mattress on the floor, his hands behind his head. “You’re the guest, sorry.”

Zuko grimaced but sat down on Sokka’s bed all the same.

“Thank you, by the way.”

“You’ve said that already,” Sokka grinned.

“Well, I am thankful. And I know that… well, your sister…”

“Yeah, Katara... she can hold a grudge.”

“I don’t blame her.”

Sokka sat upright. “Listen. I wasn’t too excited about the idea of... you know. Letting you hang with us, at first. But I trust Aang. And although he wasn’t really clear on how he knew you were chill now, that was enough for me. And it seems like he was right about you, so. No harm, no foul.”

Zuko’s chest swelled at this news.

“Hang on... he didn’t say how?”

“Nope.”

“Oh. I assumed he’d told you all.”

“He didn’t. He’s a good kid.”

“Yeah.” Silence. “He, uh... I was crying. In the common room. So he promised he wouldn’t tell.” Zuko didn’t know why he was telling Sokka this. His cheeks heated up immediately and he looked at his shoes, wishing the ground would swallow him up. He felt like that a lot lately. He kind of misses just feeling angry all the time. Now all he feels is awkward.

“Oh,” Sokka said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“It must be difficult.”

Zuko hadn’t heard that yet.

“Yeah. It is.”

“Hey, how about you lie down for a while and I’ll call on you when it’s time for lunch,” Sokka said, getting to his feet. “Sound good?”

“It does, actually,” Zuko said, surprised to find himself telling the truth.

“Alright. And don’t worry about Katara. Don’t tell her I said this, but I think she’s starting to like you.”

Sokka left the room, and Zuko watched the door shut behind him. There was a Ravenclaw banner hanging on the back of it, and although it wasn’t Zuko’s house, he found comfort in the familiarity of it. After a deep breath, he took off his shoes with caution and lay down on the bed, his stomach still off from the car ride. He was not going back in that contraption until the time came to go back to Hogwarts if he could help it.

Sokka kind of said that he was cool with Zuko and that Katara was warming to him. He was spending his first Christmas away from his family, and although it felt different, it didn’t feel bad.

Maybe, just maybe, things were going to work out.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

When Zuko woke up the next morning, the mattress Sokka had been snoring on was empty. As the minutes ticked by, he debated on whether or not he should venture through the house alone. The other option would be to just lie in Sokka’s bedroom until he came back, which made him inexplicably anxious. Would he pretend to still be sleeping? Oh, is it morning? he would ask. Zuko knew it was morning. He woke up every morning at six AM on the dot, so it had to be morning. What threw him off was the fact that Sokka was already up -- he hadn’t pegged Sokka for an early riser at all. At least not outside of school schedules.

His stomach rumbled, and he groaned. He couldn’t spend the holidays hiding from everyone all the time. He might as well have stayed at Hogwarts if that were the plan.

The sound of water running came from the bathroom down the hall as Zuko descended the stairs, wearing pajamas that had made Sokka laugh. He had said that they were old man pajamas, red and yellow pinstriped, but Zuko had never been told that before. He supposed he’d never really had anyone to tell him.

Katara didn’t look up from her mobile telephone when Zuko entered the kitchen. Gran gran was in the garden hanging laundry and the sliding glass doors were open, letting through a slight chill. The radio was on, a woman’s voice reciting current happenings in the Muggle world.

“Good morning,” Zuko said.

“Good morning,” Katara replied, still not looking up.

Zuko should have stayed in bed.

He looked at the clock on the wall and blinked in alarm. It was ten thirty.

“There’s cereal,” Katara said after a moment. Zuko realized he had just been standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen. She was looking at him now, her phone set down on the table. “In the cupboard there,” she pointed. “The bowls are next to it.”

“Thanks” he said, and set about getting himself breakfast. She didn’t reply.

Zuko sat precariously far away from where Katara was stationed, and did his best to look really interested in how Gran Gran was hanging laundry outside. Until Gran Gran pulled out a bra. Then Zuko didn’t know where to look. He didn’t want Katara to think he was some kind of pervert. But maybe acting weird about bras was what perverts did. But he wasn’t one. He tried to look at her out of the corner of his eye, to see if she was watching him. It sure felt like she was watching him. No, she was looking at her phone again. He was being paranoid.

“We’re all up!” Sokka yelled, sliding into the room barefoot, wearing only a robe and making Zuko jump. Sokka gave him a funny look as Katara replied, “Yes, we are. And _please_ tell me you’re wearing underwear.”

“What do you think I am, some kind of monster?” Sokka asked, mock-offended. He pushed his wet hair out of his face, remains of his shower still dripping down his neck. _Don’t stare at his neck, don’t stare at his neck_.

Katara glared at her brother in response and went into the living room. “‘Cause I am,” Sokka said to Zuko as soon as she was out of earshot. “Had to come down and make sure she wasn’t murdering you or whatever. Boy, you were _asleep_ , huh?”

“Yeah…” Zuko frowned. “You said she was starting to like me.”

Sokka shrugged, put his hand in the cereal box then smashed what he had pulled out into his mouth. Zuko stared. _This_ was the boy he liked.

“I’ll be back,” he said to the cartoon monkey, then bolted back upstairs.

Zuko may die here if Sokka made a habit of wandering around his house commando. But at least he now had the knowledge that, if Katara did attempt to murder him, Sokka would not be into it.

A few minutes later, Sokka bounced back downstairs and threw himself onto the living room sofa, now fully dressed, thank Merlin.

“Zuko, c’mere! Bring your cereal.”

Bewildered, Zuko did as he was asked. Back at home, he never would have dared take food out of the kitchen or the dining room, but maybe Muggles did it differently. Or maybe families that weren’t his did.

Sokka had turned on the telling-vision, and was currently fighting his sister, who was doing her best to get his feet out of her lap.

“C’mon, they’re clean! I just showered!”

“I don’t want to touch your feet, Sokka! Ever!” she squeaked, looking absolutely disgusted.

“Oh, Zuko,” Sokka said when he saw him, effectively removing his feet from the sofa and settling them on the carpet. Katara reached over and slapped his arm for good measure, and that was that of that fight. “Listen, I get that you’ve never hung around Muggles too much or anything, so here I will let you in on a time-honored Muggle tradition: cereal, which you have already obtained-”

Katara snorted.

“-and…” he pressed the buttons on the small box in his hand, pointed at the telling-vision until brightly coloured drawings occupied the screen, “... cartoons.”

Now, Zuko might not have cared much for the car, or the sea prunes, but the cartoons were fascinating.

“This isn’t magic?” he asked after a few minutes as two brightly coloured characters began squabbling with each other.

“Nope,” Sokka said, seeming proud. “Its science.”

“But… how? How do they make it move without magic?”

Katara was looking at her brother trying to hide a smile. “Yeah, Mr. Science. Tell us how.”

“Computers, I think?” Sokka said, swatting vaguely in the direction of his sister. “Dude, i don’t know.”

Zuko frowned.

“Why don’t you know? Is it a secret?”

“I mean… I don’t think so…”

“The characters,” Zuko said, deciding to change subject. “Are they wizards?”

“Uh… I don’t think so. The one with the cape is, maybe. The orange one is an alien.”

“An alien.”

“From outer space. Wizards know about aliens, right?”

“Sokka, no one _knows_ about aliens,” Katara chimed in.

“Whatever. The basic idea of them, though.”

“Orange girls with glowy hands? From space?”

“It isn’t a documentary, okay?” Sokka said, beginning to get irritated. “It’s a cartoon and its not based in fact and we should just watch the goddamn thing.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and Zuko took that to mean the end of that conversation. But after a moment, Sokka said, in earnest, “Dude, you should probably take up muggle studies.”

“My dad wouldn’t let me,” Zuko replied without thinking. “Uncle said I should, though.”

And he’d officially killed the mood. The three of them turned their attention back to the screen and no one else said a word. Sokka smirked whenever one of the characters did something amusing, which helped Zuko relax a little. He had to relax.

A _ding_ sounded from Sokka’s pocket, and he pulled out his own mobile phone. Zuko had to admit it seemed much more comfortable than sending an owl to and fro all the time.

“We’re gonna go shopping later,” he announced. “Stock up on grub. Dad says you should come and pick out stuff you like, but we’d have to take the car. So we totally get it if you wanna stay here.”

Zuko grimaced. He had not liked last night’s sea prunes, so choosing his own food was an attractive idea. The car, however, was not.

“How far is it?”

“Like ten minutes, tops. we drove past on the way here.”

“You’ll be fine,” Katara interjected, and Zuko looked at her in surprise. “I only got sick on long car journeys.”

“I’ll go, then. And I’ll help pay. Wait,” he said in realization. “I don’t have any muggle money!”

Sokka really did not seem to think this was so big of a deal. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

Zuko knew that the Waters weren’t exactly the richest around, and this made him feel uneasy. But Sokka seemed fine, and Katara unbothered.

“Oh, and I’ll have to lend you some of my clothes,” Sokka said, in reference to Zuko’s suitcase. Sure, wizard fashion had become more and more influenced by Muggle styles in the past years, but Sokka had still scoffed at Zuko’s casual wear. “Don’t want the neighbours to talk.”

He winked, and Zuko’s cheeks heated up. He wished they wouldn’t.

 

His crush on Sokka had been fine when he didn’t know about it. For as long as he could remember, he’d always been strangely fixated on the other boy, even before they had been friends, even before their siblings had joined them at Hogwarts. Zuko remembers those two years without Azula well. It had been the first time he’d been away from home, away from his family. Mai had been there, too, so he hadn’t been completely free of his family’s reach. But it felt mean to think of Mai as another of his father’s — or sister’s — pawns, so he tried not to.

He had met Sokka during his second week at Hogwarts. They’d been paired up for Herbology because Mai had made another friend, and had paired up with her. Zuko remembered panicking, unsure of how to act alone, but Sokka had been friendly enough. They’d almost been friends for a while there, at the beginning. Until Sokka learnt who Zuko was. Until Mai had told him.

“You shouldn’t hang around him anyway,” Mai had said when Sokka avoided Zuko’s eye in the Great Hall. “It wouldn’t be right.”

And Zuko understood what she had meant. She was trying to be his friend. If his father got word that Zuko was hanging around a boy from a family like the Waters’, on top of being sorted into Hufflepuff, of all houses, Zuko would be in more trouble than he could imagine come the Holidays.

So Zuko had steered clear of Sokka, taken up a different partner in Herbology, made other friends from other, more respectable, pureblood families.

But that didn’t stop him observing Sokka from afar. He was painfully aware of whenever Sokka put up his hand in class, or when he was sat near Mai at the Ravenclaw table. He would hear his jokes in the hallway and scowl, he would feel bitter when he would come over to the Hufflepuff table to chat with some bald first year rather than him. He remembered the first time seeing Sokka in his Beater get-up, and seeing him hug his sister after a game. He’d felt oddly proud when Sokka made Ravenclaw Team Captain last year, and oddly sad when he and the Gryffindor Chaster, Suki Kyoshi, had started dating.

Looking back on it, he now felt embarrassed about the hours he’d spent thinking about the other boy, and he hoped to Merlin that Sokka would never find out.

 

That afternoon, after they had returned from the muggle store -- which was unlike anything Zuko had ever seen, huge and white, flickering lights showing endless packages of food -- and had lunch, Zuko was half expecting to sit back in front of the telling vision. Not that he would have a problem with that, to be honest. He had started to think that if the Holidays were to be spent watching muggle pictures, they wouldn’t be so bad.

But instead, Sokka told him to put on a pair of trainers and meet him back downstairs.

“I wanna show you something,” he said.

Zuko hated how his heart skipped at those words.

Sokka called him over to the door leading to the garden, a ball under one arm and a pair of gloves in the other. Katara was nowhere to be seen, and Gran Gran was knitting in the living room.

“Your Muggle education continues,” Sokka said with a grin, sliding the glass doors to one side and stepping out into the garden. The temperature had dropped a bit since they’d gone shopping, and Sokka and Zuko donned scarves and hats for it. The sky was grey now, an icy wind blowing through the hedges.

Zuko followed Sokka to the end of the garden, then through a small iron gate he hadn’t noticed before. It lead to a small pathway that ran around the adjoining house, and then back into a street much alike Sokka’s.

“The muggle world seems so neat,” Zuko observed as they walked along. “All these houses, all the same.”

“I mean, I guess,” Sokka said, shrugging. “This is just one neighborhood. Though there are a lot like this one, I guess.” He pointed out to a house with a green door. “A witch lives there. Katara hates her.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. She was always ragging on mom. Super weird about purebloods ‘mixing’ or whatever. A bit rich, considering where she lives and all.”

“Yeah,” Zuko said, and for a moment he thought he saw the witch staring back out at him from between curtains. He hurried up to match Sokka’s pace once more. Sokka, apparently, was a bit of a gossip. He had something to say about pretty much everyone on this street, a street that ended in a grassy hill, which was so steep that they had to jog down it. There was another path at the bottom, and the two boys walked past a woman pushing a stroller until they reached another wooden fence. Sokka climbed over easily, ball still under his arm, and Zuko followed. A small dirt path through an assortment of trees and one small stream later, they reached a spacious clearing, and Sokka came to a halt.

“This is where we’d always come. Mum, dad, Tara. Then just dad and me. Then Tara joined again. But yeah. Here is where I teach you the ancient art of,” he put on an exaggerated London accent, “ _footie_.”

“You mean football.”

“I mean football.”

“That’s a football,” Zuko said, pointing to the thing Sokka had been carrying this whole time. It was a tattered old thing, the white leather of it ripped and brown. Sokka lifted it up, grinning.

“Indeed it is, young Padawan.”

“I don’t know what a Padawan is.”

Sokka shook his head. “Of course you don’t. Gotta fix that, too.”

“But I know about football. Haru loves it.” Haru was one of the guys Zuko shared a dorm with. He was fine, but Zuko wished he’d give up on the moustache.

“Ah, Haru,” Sokka said, disapproving. “He’s alright, I guess. The moustache, though…”

Zuko smiled. “Yeah.”

“Okay!” Sokka threw the ball to Zuko, and Zuko caught it. “How much d’you know?”

“There are twelve players to a team,” Zuko said, wracking his brains. “And a keeper, the same as Quidditch.”

“The goalie, yeah,” Sokka smiled, and Zuko felt proud. Sokka unwrapped his scarf and tossed it on the ground a decent distance away from where Zuko stood. “Alright, so you got the basics. Obviously we don’t have the twelve players. But here, lets just practice passes at first, yeah? I pass it to you, you to me. You’re allowed to use any body part but your hands, or arms, for that matter. Only the goalie can do that. The trick is,” he motioned for Zuko to toss him back the ball, and Zuko complied, “for a basic pass, you want to use the inside of your foot. Like this.”

And so Sokka taught Zuko the basics of football, and Zuko was not very good at it. More than once, Zuko had to chase after a pass he’d missed, or apologize when Sokka had to go into the woods to find a pass he’d made. But Sokka didn’t seem to mind. Sokka seemed _happy_ , and Zuko found it hard to believe that it was just the two of them, surrounded by trees, laughing.

“I mean, it’s not Quidditch, but it has its charms,” Sokka said. His hair was falling out of his wolf’s tail, into his eyes, which were wrinkling at the edges. He walked towards Zuko, ‘dribbling’ the ball and taking off his coat as he came. “Here,” he said, dropping his coat on top of where he had previously left his scarf and hat. “Let me show you how tackling goes.”

“Alright,” Zuko agreed, but suddenly he felt nervous. He mimicked Sokka, finally removing his own hat, scarf and coat. It was warmer now, or at least, he was, and his hair was pasted to his forehead.

“Basically, you’re not supposed to like, shove at the other guy, or whatever,” Sokka said, putting the ball between them, “but that doesn’t mean that people don’t do it, when the ref’s not looking. You can’t be afraid to get close and personal.”

Zuko was very afraid of getting close and personal, but he nodded anyway.

“This is, like, also the Chaser’s part. You weren’t the best at the passing-”

“It’s completely different to Quidditch,” Zuko interjected.

“-but maybe tackling is where your Chaser talents lie.”

“Sure,” Zuko said, but he didn’t have much hope for it.

“Okay. So.” He spread out his palms. “Try to get the ball off of me.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Zuko said out loud.

“What?” Sokka asked, grinning. “Scared?”

“I’m not good at any of this.”

“Practice makes perfect! Now come on! Tackle me!”

Zuko pursed his lips in an attempt to steel himself.

Then, he lurched forward, not particularly sure what his game plan was -- but it didn’t matter. Sokka was faster, and had moved himself and the ball out of Zuko’s way.

“This is ridiculous,” Zuko said, but found that he was laughing. “I can’t do this.”

“Not with that attitude. Come on.”

This time, Zuko managed to kick the ball out from between Sokka’s feet. It went behind Sokka, and Sokka got it back right away, but it was progress. A few more attempts, and Zuko was butting into Sokka, and Sokka was pushing back. Zuko grabbed Sokka’s arm for a moment, and the two of them danced around the ball, Zuko’s brow furrowed in frustration.

Sokka was the one who stumbled, falling into Zuko’s chest, laughing into his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said, and his biceps were warm under Zuko’s palms.

“No problem,” Zuko said, and hated himself the moment he did. Sokka didn’t seem to notice. Zuko let go of his grip on Sokka, but his heart was now thudding badly in his ears, and his blood felt warm in a different way. And he had been doing so well up until then.

In the next few minutes, he finally managed to get the ball away from Sokka. When he met his eye, Sokka was beaming, and then his smile faded into something else. Something softer. Something that made Zuko’s stomach twist.

He cleared his throat and looked away.

“Wanna try scoring a goal or two?”

There was a decent distance between where Sokka stood between two piles of scarves, gloves, and hats, and where Zuko stood ready to kick the ball into the makeshift goal. This, Zuko could deal with. There were special goalkeeper gloves, as tattered as the ball, that Sokka slipped on before crouching and patting at his thighs, and image Zuko could have lived without.

Zuko was better, somehow at this. Sokka blamed it on how Zuko had no idea where he was kicking the ball, so Sokka found it hard to guess. Then they switched places, Zuko in goal as Sokka tried to score, and although Zuko had never played Keeper, it was much easier than trying to get a ball to go where you wanted through kicks. He was sure that the game had merit, but from now on he decided that ‘goalie’ was his new position.

The exhaustion of the day soon caught up to the two of them. Zuko dived to save a goal and instead of getting up, he just lay there. He’d never done anything of the like during Quidditch practice, and then he realized that this wasn’t practice. This was just for fun.

“Oh, shit. I killed Zuko,” Sokka laughed, walking up to where Zuko lay. “You alright, bud?”

“Fine,” Zuko said, not budging. A second passed, and then Sokka joined him on the grass, propping his head up on his hands.

“It’s no Quidditch. But it can be fun.”

“With more players, I guess,” Zuko said to the sky.

There was a brief silence. “I mean, yeah. This was fun, though, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

“I didn’t force you to kill yourself over a football?”

“No,” Zuko laughed, feeling giddy. There was little Sokka would have to force him to do.

And it was like lightning hit him square in the chest. Because this fact -- the fact that Zuko liked Sokka a lot, the fact that Zuko had been keeping to himself -- felt huge and bright and _good_. He swallowed as he looked up at the grey clouds ahead, because he wanted to say something. He had to. It was as if he couldn't not say something. It was scrambled in his chest, and he had to get it out. He opened his mouth and licked his lips, wondering how he might start.

“Aw, fuck,” Sokka said, and Zuko jumped, eyes wide, as if Sokka was suddenly a leglimens, able to read his thoughts. But instead, Sokka was sat up, rubbing at his eye. “A raindrop fell in my eye!”

“It’s raining?” Zuko asked, unwilling to move. He didn’t trust himself to. Because just like that, in a split second, he felt ill at the idea of telling Sokka anything to do with his feelings, no matter how bright they felt. His head was spinning, and he couldn’t believe what the Zuko of _five damn seconds ago_ had been about to do.

Sokka held out his palm, waiting for confirmation. Then, “Yup. Fuck, it's cold. We’re gonna get sick and Tara’s gonna kill me.” He jumped to his feet, then held out his hand. “C’mon.”

Working past the panic that was settling in his veins, Zuko steeled his expression into a neutral one and took the hand Sokka offered him. The two of them hurried home without much more of a word, working against the weather. When they came out of the other end of the forest, back to the path at the bottom of the hill, it was raining heavily. Instead of scrambling up the hill slick with rain, Sokka lead him to where stone steps took them back to civilization, then the two of them ran back to the Waters’ home.

The second they stepped into the house, Sokka began to pull off his muddy, wet clothes, kicking off his shoes as he moved towards the stairs. “You want the first shower?”

Zuko swallowed. “No, you take it.”

“Cheers. I’ll try to be quick.”

And he hopped up the stairs, pulling off his trousers as he went.

Slowly, Zuko turned to see Katara on the living room sofa, looking at Zuko oddly.

Zuko coughed, tried to say something, ended up waving at her, then headed upstairs to have a serious conversation with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all soooo much for all the comments and kudos so far! they mean a bunch they really do! im glad you're all enjoying :D let me kno ur thoughts on this chapter ! it was supposed to be longer but i ended up splitting it in two.


	3. Chapter 3

Zuko spent the next few days of break wearing Sokka’s old clothes and learning about Sokka’s old life — or rather, his muggle life. It was wonderful and terrible all at once. He had thought that there were limits to the uncomfortable affection he felt for the other boy, but a few days into the holidays, slowly but surely, he began to believe that perhaps there were not. He was constantly being elated by Sokka’s presence, by something Sokka did... such as a bad joke, or a goofy smile. And the worst part was that he was allowing himself to be. He was relaxing into it. He was letting himself grow accustomed to the way his heart would skip a beat, getting used to the butterflies in his stomach. This was not good.

They played football every day. Football was the highlight and the low point of Zuko’s day. He was becoming quite good at goalkeeping, but when they were just tackling each other, his whole body was on edge because of the constant physical contact he had with Sokka. Sokka, who seemed to look more ethereal every time Zuko laid eyes on him... Merlin, he was so gone.

As the three of them sat in front of the television, keeping warm from the sleet and ice outside, he wondered what things would be like when they went back to Hogwarts.

Even Katara was softer around him now. He couldn’t transfer this to the stone halls of the castle — couldn’t imagine running into the younger of the Waters siblings without flinching.

But he had endured many a time alone with her since they had arrived at the Waters’ home. One day, he woke up yet another morning to Sokka’s empty bed, and when Zuko himself made it downstairs, Katara informed him that Sokka was out running errands with Gran Gran. Zuko had taken a shower, which had ran cold. Maybe he yelled a little, and maybe Katara came to the door to ask him what was wrong. He had wrapped a towel around his middle and let her fix the water. Maybe he had even seen her blush.

He wished Sokka would blush.

Or he didn’t. He wouldn’t even know what to do with a blushing Sokka. He probably wouldn’t do anything. What was there to do?

When he had thoughts like those, he had to stop himself cold. Thoughts like that were pointless, and stupid, and complicated. As if his life wasn’t pointless, stupid and complicated enough.

On the twenty-second, the siblings and Zuko took a trip into London’s city center to get some last minute shopping done. Zuko already had his presents for the gang, bought in a panic the last week of school in Hogsmeade, but Sokka admitted that there were a few things he hadn’t been able to get, and Mr Waters offered to take them in on his way to work. Katara joined them, and they were supposed to meet Aang in Diagon Alley.

They woke up early and bundled up for their excursion. Sokka climbed into the passenger seat this time, leaving Zuko in the back with Katara, and he was shocked at how comfortable it was — at least compared to his first trip in this car.  She told him about a ballpoint pen she had an eye on, because, as wonderful as quills looked, they simply weren’t as efficient. Sokka teased her from the front seat about _having her eye on_ a ballpoint pen, but she ignored him and told Zuko she’d give him a demonstration at the shop. Zuko himself was quite looking forward to seeing what Muggle London was like — in fact, he’d rather spend all his time there, rather than venture into Diagon Alley, where he was more likely to be recognized.

He kept those fears to himself as the three of them wove in and out of muggle stores, boasting brightly coloured screens, muggle sports gear and, to Katara’s delight, office supplies.

“I told Aang we’d meet him near Weasley’s around eleven, and I want to get his present before he gets there,” Sokka reminded his sister as she lusted over different coloured notebooks.

“Okay, I’ll just be a moment.”

“Zuko and I’ll wait outside,” Sokka told her, and Katara barely looked up in recognition.

“You can’t complain,” Zuko said as soon as they were outside. “You spent half an hour looking at bags.”

“I wasn’t about to! I’m giving her, you know, space.”

“Space?”

“Yeah. To maybe buy something for one of us, or something. Christmas shopping is an art, especially in groups.”

“Oh.”

“On a related note, I’m gonna have to abandon you two for a moment while I go on a secret mission of my own.”

“That’s okay,” Zuko said as Katara emerged from the shop, not looking the least bit suspicious. Both siblings were carrying bags, which played to their favour if they were trying to outsmart each other with secret, last minute gifts.

“Tara, I was just telling Zuko that I’ll meet you in Diagon Alley. I’ve got to get one last thing and I don’t want us to miss Aang.”

“That seems fine,” Katara replied, and gave Zuko an awkward smile. Merlin.

“Great, see you both there! Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Katara said, but Sokka was already backing away and lost in the bustling crowd. She turned to Zuko. “Shall we get going?”

The two of them were silent on their way to the Leaky Cauldron, and the lack of conversation was almost excruciating. Pushing through the Christmas crowd was a welcome distraction, although it became slightly uncomfortable as Katara grabbed onto his sleeve to get through a particularly difficult part. She dropped it as soon as they were free of screaming toddlers and angry adults, and then they had reached the Leaky Cauldron, busier than Zuko had ever seen it.

He and his family very rarely entered Diagon Alley through Muggle London, but he and his friends had grabbed a drink here once or twice. In spite of himself, Zuko felt relief upon stepping back into the magical world. The pub was warm and full of smoke, but didn’t smell unpleasant, at least. Azula always complained about the smell…

It was as if he had conjured her up from memory alone.

Katara and Zuko headed out through the back door to the famous brick alleyway into Diagon Alley, Zuko tapping the bricks and cursing when he got it wrong.

“Let me,” Katara said kindly, probably much more used to the ritual than Zuko was. She tapped the right bricks in the right order, and the two of them were swept into the bustle of Diagon Alley, all done up for Christmas. Where the Muggle decorations had been sparkling but stagnant -- aside from a few robotics which had scared Zuko to no end — Diagon Alley was alive from the cobblestones upwards. Enchanted snow fell from the sky due to the lack of the real stuff, reminding Zuko of Hogwarts. Bells rang and tiny Santa Clauses in sleds flew across the sky, and everything smelled so good. When he looked to Katara, she was smiling, and he felt himself grinning, too. That was when he walked right into his sister.

“Sorr-” he began, but faltered. The blood in his veins turned to ice and his face went slack.

And Azula, dressed in her deep red winter coat to match her signature lipstick, noticed.

She smiled at him, entertained, whatever shock she may feel at seeing her brother well-hidden. Beside her stood Tai Lee, and Zuko’s stomach swooped in fear until no, he could see that Mai was not there. He felt relief and then guilt, but pushed both emotions aside to control his own face as his sister was so good at doing. Katara was touching his arm lightly, which must mean that he looked bad.

“Brother dearest!” Azula said, clapping her hands together, her voice only just loud enough to be heard over the busy street. She wore fingerless gloves and was empty handed. Behind her, Tai Lee carried a decent few shopping bags, and the crowd was making its way around the group with care. Azula had that effect. “They let you out the house!” she crooned, leaning forward conspiratorally. “Have you been having fun playing make-believe? Playing like you’re one of them? I don’t see the appeal, personally.”

Katara cleared her throat.

“One of _them_?” She was fixing Azula with a gaze that Zuko himself had received one too many times in the past.

Azula arched a thin eyebrow in surprise, as if just noticing Zuko’s companion, or surprised that Katara would dare speak to her directly.

“Oh, am I interrupting? Is this a date?” She looked back to Zuko. “Father won’t be happy. Neither will Mai, I don’t think. She says she’s over you, but I’m not convinced.”

“Don’t be mean, Azula,” Tai Lee chimed in. Zuko was almost touched, but he realized she meant mean to Mai. Of course.

“Oh, alright.” She gave Katara another look. “We both know she’s not your type, anyway.” She leveled Zuko with a sly smirk.

“Leave her out of this, Azula. In fact, just leave.”

“I’m sorry to say that you and I don’t have _leaving_ in common, brother.”

“And _I’m_ sorry to hear that, sister.”

“Really,” Azula said, regarding him. “I don’t suppose there’s an extra room in the shack they’ve dragged you off to? I’ll pack my bags right away.”

“No one dragged me anywhere, Azula. And it’s not a shack!”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“You’re not invited,” Katara said. Azula turned her attention back to her, fire in her eyes, and Zuko began to panic. He knew that look.

“Tell me, mudblood,” she began quietly, her tone vicious, her face changed.

“Azula-” Zuko said, stepping forward, but she put a hand to his chest and pushed him back, not to be silenced.

“How did my brother weasel his way into your home, tell me?” she continued, stepping into Katara’s space. Katara, lips pursed, did not budge. “Did he brood a lot in your company back at school? Whine and whimper like a mistreated pup, making you pity him? I don’t blame you for falling for it. He does look quite pitiful, especially with the, you know.” She gestured vaguely to the left side of her face, putting on a pout. “My poor, misunderstood brother, snot-nosed and crying as they dragged my traitor Uncle off to Azkaban.”

Zuko didn’t realized he’d lunged forward once more until he faltered, Katara’s fingers digging into his arms.

Azula had taken a generous step backwards, but otherwise looked unbothered.

“Ooh, maybe he _is_ your new pet!” she sneered. People were beginning to look concerned about the scene they were creating, but Zuko couldn’t care less as he struggled against an angry Katara. “Make sure to keep him on a tight leash. He might just run off to sleep with the enemy.”

“Guys, look who I found!”

Sokka was bouncing towards them, Aang in tow, his happy expression falling as soon as Azula came into view. “Yeah, I definitely did better on who I ran into,” he said dejectedly upon reaching them.

“Waters,” Azula said cooly, looking up at Sokka with the confidence of someone his same height.

“Psycho,” Sokka replied. It was odd to Zuko that they knew each other and related to each other outside of him. Azula was young for a Quidditch Captain, but Quidditch Captain all the same. Sokka had his own dynamic with Zuko’s sister, one that he was left out of, and it was odd to see up close.

“No need to be rude,” Azula said, although she didn’t look too hurt.

“I don’t feel the need to be polite, personally.”

Azula rolled her eyes, then looked at Aang. Aang, the friendliest person Zuko had ever met, who was managing the closest thing Zuko had ever seen to a scowl.

“Well, I can tell when I’m not wanted.”

“Can you, now?” Katara challenged, but Azula ignored her, suddenly studying Sokka, then looking back to Zuko.

“Oh,” she said. “Now _that_ I understand.”

“Azula,” Zuko said, fraught with panic.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t tell.” She patted him on the chest, and Sokka moved closer. Zuko would have been touched if he weren’t mortified. “Your secret’s safe with me, brother.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I very rarely am.”

Zuko hated her. In that moment, the hate rushed through him, bright red, and he was able to identify it as that.

“Come on, Tai Lee. I’ve still got to get my gift for father. I have to make up for a missing Uncle _and_ brother.”

“Bye, Zuko,” Tai Lee said, smiling, with the decency to look slightly apologetic.

“Geez,” Sokka said as Azula and Tai Lee disappeared into the bustle of people.

“Your sister is...” Katara began.

“The worst,” Sokka supplied.

“I don’t like her,” Aang murmured.

Zuko didn’t have it in him to agree.

“Uh, how about we head to Weasley’s,” Sokka suggested, and Zuko was grateful for the distraction. He stayed silent as they moved towards the famous joke shop, Aang slowly becoming more and more like his regular self. By the time they left the place about an hour later, even he felt more at ease, smiling at Aang’s talk of magical creatures and happy about the gift he had covertly bought for Hakoda. He had missed Aang and how easy he seemed to make everything. He made being good easier. Zuko wasn’t sure if he would be here -- walking around Diagon Alley with the Waters almost feeling like he belonged -- if it weren't for him.

They had ice-creams and talked about poor Toph, stuck at home for the Holidays, probably being forced to act like a lady as they spoke. The ice-creams were special Christmas flavours, and Zuko was having a hard time getting through his beetle candy-cane flavoured one. He handed it out to Sokka who, without a word, dug his spoon into Zuko’s ice-cream while talking about how the Beifong’s freaked him out.

“Oh, gross,” he said mid-sentence, the flavour of Zuko’s ice-cream hitting him. “Here, let’s switch.”

“You said it was gross.”

“Yeah, I love it.”

Zuko shook his head in disbelief and, fighting a smile, swapped ice-creams with Sokka. His was eggnog — still not great tasting, but it was slightly better than the beetle one.

He wasn’t sure how Katara did it, but she was looking at him the same way she had after the first day they’d played football, the same way she looked at him anytime Zuko was feeling particularly gooey inside. His good ear began to heat up, and he cleared his throat.

“So, Suki couldn’t make it today?” he asked, but Sokka just shrugged.

“She said she was busy. Family stuff,” he said.

“I really had to talk Andy into letting me come, today. In fact,” he said, looking at his watch with a wince, “they want me home in a few.”

“How come?” Sokka asked, but Katara looked like she already knew the answer.

“Because of me,” Zuko guessed.

“That’s…” Sokka began, but then saw the look on Aang’s face. “True. Boy. I didn’t figure they’d be the types.”

“The types to what?” Aang asked, but then looked sheepish. “Yeah… I thought they’d be nicer.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Don’t be.”

The table turned to Katara, who’s words of comfort had shocked everyone. Even Aang’s mouth was slightly agape.

“It’s Christmas,” she said, shrugging, as if that explained it all.

Zuko wished it did. Over the next few days, Katara acted different towards him. Because he was paranoid, he was sure that she had figured out his… crush on her brother. Which was mortifying in herself. But that didn’t make complete sense. He would have thought that her reaction to such a thing would be an aggressive one — it wasn’t like she would support anything of the sort, especially when she loved Suki so much. They practically acted like sisters these days.

Instead, Katara was going out of her way to be… nice to him. Nice-ish. It was odd. She would pass him extra helpings at meal times, and kept checking to see if the warm water was working before he went into the bathroom. It was beginning to freak him out.

Maybe she was pitying him, because she knew that Sokka would never return his feelings… But no, Zuko realized that was slightly delusional.

On Christmas Eve, however, he got to the bottom of it. He and Sokka hadn’t made it to the clearing since they had returned from Diagon Alley, and when they both fell to the ground, exhausted from a good few hours kicking a ball around, Sokka shifted closer to him across the grass. The light was dying, and everything was shining in purple.

“Listen, about Diagon Alley...” Sokka began. He picked a blade of grass and fiddled with it between his fingers.

“What about it?” Zuko asked, even though he knew the answer.

“I’m just sorry, I guess. That your sister’s... like that. Katara and I have always been... I just can’t imagine.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” Sokka leaned forwards to put a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “I wasn’t sure for a while there, but you’re a good guy.”

Zuko wasn’t sure what to say to that. Sokka squeezed, then dropped his hand back into his lap. And Katara’s actions made sense. Azula’s attack had made her feel sorry for him. He did not know how that made him feel.

“I like Quidditch because it’s not spell based,” Sokka said, unprompted. He was sat directing in front of Zuko, legs crossed, but now he was looking up at the darkening sky. “Same reason I like potions. I like football ‘cause it reminds me that there’s more. It’s fine if I’m a shitty wizard. There’s other stuff out there. For me.”

Zuko stared at him in shock. “You’re not a shitty wizard.”

“I am.” Sokka dropped his head but would not meet Zuko’s gaze. A cold breeze made Zuko’s hair stand on end. “Everyone knows it. Secret Squib Sokka, that’s me.”

“That’s- that’s not true. Dude, you’re the best student in our year.”

“‘Cause I work my ass off. Did you know I had to ask Smethwyck for extra Charms classes. _Charms_.”

“Charms can be… difficult.”

Now Sokka looked at him. He was giving him a weak smile, one that said, ‘Come on.’

“Sokka, you’re at least the smartest guy in our year, maybe even the school. That’s not nothing. How good you are at _Charms_ isn’t what makes you a good wizard.”

Sokka smiled. “You sound like Tara.”

His smile was making Zuko uneasy. He swallowed. “Are… are you alright?”

Sokka blinked. “Yeah, sorry. I just got a bit…” he waved a hand in front of his face, “introspective. I don’t know.”

He got to his feet, and held out his hand for Zuko to take, as was custom. Zuko took it, and Sokka helped pull Zuko up. They remained close, Sokka putting his hands in his pockets. The light was almost gone, now. Sokka would have to use his phone as a light to get back through the trees, like last time.

“You know, I kind of fancy being an engineer,” he said, showing no hurry to get moving. “Like, I’d like to study in the muggle world. After Hogwarts.”

“Oh. That could be cool. I don’t really… know much about what that is. What that’s like.”

“Machines, mostly. Without magic.”

“Like aeroplanes?”

“Yeah, like that.”

Zuko swallowed down the words, _Why are you telling me this?_ “I think you’d be good at that,” he said instead. “But you’re good at magic, too. I don’t think you should forget that. You’re a good wizard. A _really_ good one.”

“Thanks. What about you?”

“Hm?”

“What are you gonna do? After school.”

“Oh. I don’t… I don’t really know.”

He had known, a year ago. He was going to join his father at the Ministry. Do whatever his father needed him to do. Be whatever his father needed him to be.

“Will you come visit me?”

Zuko focused on Sokka’s face. He was smiling, a crooked smile, the corner of his mouth lifting to reveal shining teeth. And there was something else there, too. Something in his eyes. Zuko’s heart fluttered. He wasn’t imagining it.

“Huh?” he asked, like an idiot.

“When I’m at Uni,” Sokka clarified. Merlin, he was standing close. Zuko was wearing nothing but a long-sleeved t-shirt, but it was warm out here, in the freezing cold. “Will you come and see me?”

 _Uhhhhhh_ , said Zuko’s brain.

“Uhhhhhh,” said Zuko, out loud. “I can’t drive.”

“Sokka!”

Katara, emerging from the trees, leaves crunching beneath her boots, certainly seemed confused about the scene before her. So it wasn’t just Zuko.

I can’t drive. _I can’t drive?_

“Skype, remember?” Katara said when neither boy moved.

“Oh, shit!” Sokka said, and just like that, he was back in action, himself again, no longer looking at Zuko like… that. He rushed towards their makeshift goal and retrieved both his and Zuko’s coats. When he returned to Zuko to push Zuko’s coat into his arms, he winked.

He winked at Zuko.

“Uhhhh,” Zuko said, but Sokka was already heading into the trees, his coat already half on. Zuko kicked himself to hurry up and follow them already, blatantly ignoring Katara’s stares because honestly, he’d had enough of those for a lifetime.

Every Christmas Eve, Waters from all over the world gathered around their home computers to talk with each other through the tiny screens. It seemed like a nice tradition. Sokka and Katara introduced Zuko to their Australian and American cousins, but by the time Japan joined the chat, Zuko excused himself, feeling more and more like an intruder with each tiny face that appeared, smiling and waving but not at him.

He climbed up the stairs and went to shower without Katara checking the water beforehand. No matter how kind the Waters had been to him, he savoured each moment he spent in the bathroom with the door locked behind him, the only time he felt he could fully breathe and be himself, alone, with no one watching. Only right now his thoughts were muddled, a mess.

Why did Sokka look at him like that? Why did he say he couldn’t drive? What was happening?

And then he thought about his family. The water ran hot, thank god, and Sokka really had seemed sorry about Azula. Katara certainly was sorry about it. He supposed it had shocked them to see Azula act how she did. To see Azula treat him like that. To see them treat each other that way.

He couldn’t imagine seeing Sokka and Katara act the same way. He couldn’t imagine Hakoda doing what his father had done to him.

He missed his mom. He missed when things weren’t so complicated. He wished things had never been complicated. It wasn’t fair that his life was like this. It wasn’t fair.

Once he was in his pajamas, sitting on Sokka’s bed, he wondered what Azula was doing now. Voices bubbled up from downstairs, and he couldn’t remember a time his own home had been so lively on Christmas. The holidays were a formal affair for his family. They dressed well and ate good food, but there was none of the warmth he had felt in these short few days at the Waters’. Especially not since his mother left.

 

He woke up nervous on Christmas morning. Sokka was already awake, but still on his mattress on the floor, looking at his phone. When he noticed Zuko was up, he grinned, put his phone down and said, “Merry Christmas.”

Zuko could not help but smile back.

Sokka’s present to him was goalkeeper gloves, which made Zuko’s cheeks heat up with joy. Upon opening his gift from Zuko, a book he’d found on the magical history of Alaska, Sokka leapt over to give him a quick squeeze, beaming all the while. He had mentioned quite a few times that he wished he knew more about where his mother grew up, and Zuko hoped that he found what he was looking for in there.

Katara got Zuko his very own muggle pencil case, in a tasteful deep red, filled to the brim with muggle pens and all sorts of pencils, alongside a notebook. She blushed as he opened it, and his chest was full. Hakoda enjoyed the Electric Shock Shake Zuko had gotten him, proving Zuko’s theory about Sokka getting his sense of humour from his father.

The biggest surprise of the morning was a present from Suki, which was a book of poems by a Muggle author that Gran-Gran seemed to approve of, “If you like that sort of thing.” Zuko was touched that Suki had gotten him anything at all. He had something for her, just in case, but hadn’t been able to give it to her. He had felt odd about the whole thing. When he saw her again, he would give it to her.

After presents, Zuko found himself roped into helping Gran Gran make the lunch while Katara and Sokka sat around with their father, but he wasn’t too sore about that. In fact, he was happy to give them the space, and spend some time alone with the older woman. He always knew where he stood with her because she didn’t shy away from telling him when he was doing something wrong. The mashed-potatoes, for example, he was terrible at, and was shooed away from them the moment she got a glimpse of how badly he was messing up. She called him hopeless, and he appreciated that quite a bit.

In the evening, after returning from a brisk walk around the neighbourhood, they all sat around to watch _It’s_ _A Wonderful Life_ , Sokka and Katara’s mother’s favourite film.

It made Zuko cry.

He couldn’t pinpoint what it was about the movie that made his eyes sting, but as soon as the screen faded to black, he excused himself and headed out into the back garden, hot tears rolling down his cheeks.

It was freezing outside. Neighbours’ Christmas lights keep the garden bright, and he sat down on the damp wooden porch. After a few minutes, the porch creaked under Sokka’s footsteps, and as Zuko quickly wiped his tears on his sleeve, the other boy sat down beside him in silence.

“It’s a pretty hardcore film,” Sokka said finally.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.”

“I think my mom was obsessed with James Stewart. The actor.”

“He’s a good-looking guy,” Zuko said.

Sokka let out a surprised little laugh, and Zuko got the feeling that maybe he had let something slip. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

“What did Suki get you?” he asked, surprising himself with the question. Sokka gave him a funny look.

“Oh, she gave it to me back at Hogwarts.”

He didn’t specify what it was, and suddenly Zuko regretted ever asking. Sokka seemed to read his mind.

“No, no! Nothing… nothing like…” He seemed to be turning red. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Zuko said, but he was laughing now.

“Shut up,” Sokka said again, knocking his knee with Zuko’s. “You know…” he began.

“What?”

“I mean…” he looked around the quiet garden, anxious. Zuko could hear other neighbours’ laughter, alongside muffled muggle Christmas songs. “Fuck it,” Sokka murmured, seemingly to himself. He turned back towards Zuko. “We broke up.”

The smile dropped from Zuko’s face.

“What?”

“Yeah. A couple of weeks ago.”

“What?” Zuko said again.

“We’ve been kind of keeping it under wraps ‘cause we didn’t wanna, like, make a big deal out of it or anything.”

“But it is a big deal,” Zuko said past the blood rushing through his ears. “Sokka, it’s a big deal. I’m so sorry.”

Sokka shrugged, looked over the dark garden. “It’s whatever.” Then he crumpled. “I mean, it sucks. It really sucks.”

“Why?” Zuko asked. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me. Sorry.”

Sokka laughed. “It’s, uh, kind of private.”

“Yeah, totally. I understand.”

The silence after that was weird. Zuko’s heart was beating fast and he didn’t know why. He wasn’t happy that they had broken up. They were right for each other!

They would be back together. He found some semblance of calm in that affirmation. They had to get back together.

“Actually…” Sokka said, and Zuko turned his head to look at him. “Fuck,” he muttered. “The thing is…” he licked his lips. “I mean—“

“What are you boys doing out here? You’ll freeze to death!”

“Gran gran!” Sokka squeaked, jumping to his feet and running up to his grandmother. He hugged her and she gave Zuko a confused look over her grandson’s shoulder. Zuko smiled but his stomach was in knots. For absolutely no reason at all. “Don’t you just love Christmas?” Sokka said to her. He then yawned very loudly. “Man, I think I’m going to bed early, good night!”

When Zuko made it to their room, Sokka was already snoring. For some reason, Zuko had the weirdest feeling Sokka was pretending… but that wouldn’t make any sense. Not that anything Sokka had done in that last minute had made any sense.

Moments later, however, after Zuko had crawled into Sokka's bed and turned off the lights, his suspicion was confirmed.

"Zuko?" Sokka whispered.

Zuko looked up at the ceiling and said nothing. He could barely hear much at all past the sound of his heart beating in his chest.

Then, he heard Sokka let out a breath and roll over.

Maybe, if he knew how different tomorrow would be, he would have answered him. But maybe it was for the best that he didn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this took so long! life beat my arse! it's almost 3am but i really wanted to publish this today, so sorry if there were any mistakes in the chapter!
> 
> i hope you all liked this one and thank you sooo much for reading <3<3<3 and all your comments and kudos really mean so much so THANK YOU!


	4. Chapter 4

Zuko awoke to an empty room devoid of Sokka’s snores, the neighbours’ Christmas lights dancing on the darkened ceiling above him.

He wasn’t sure what time it was, or how long he had been asleep for. A light was on in the hall, and after a moment, he realized there was a quiet conversation going on, murmurs filtering through the crack in the door.

Something about it didn’t seem right. Instead of going back to sleep, he pushed back his covers and tiptoed towards the door, an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Sure enough, the voices belonged to Sokka and Katara. With a jolt, he realized they might be talking about him. They were going to get rid of him. Inviting him here had been a mistake. Sokka had acted so strangely last night... maybe then he had realized what a mistake allowing Zuko into his home had been.

But then he heard a third voice, also familiar. He cracked open the door and sure enough, there stood Aang, still in a muggle coat and hat, looking down at the floor. Katara and Sokka stood in front of them, each sibling in their pajamas, hugging themselves and whispering.

“I’m sure it will be resolved soon,” Katara was saying, “this kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore-“

“What kind of thing?” Zuko asked.

Only Katara seemed surprised to see him. Aang nodded his greetings dejectedly, and Sokka turned and said, “I was just about to get you. There was an attack on the Ministry Christmas Ball.”

Suddenly, Zuko was wide awake.

“What?” he said, stepping towards the group.

“Yeah, Andy dropped Aang off here to check it out. Dad’s gone, too. It’s all hands on deck.”

“What kind of attack?”

“We... don’t really know yet.”

“Toph,” Zuko said, remembering how little Toph had wanted to go to that party. “What about Toph?”

“Andy said she’s okay,” Aang replied, but he sounded unsure.

“We told Gran Gran we’d be going to bed,” Katara said, throwing a cautious glance down the stairs. A light was on, and Zuko could only assume that Gran Gran was milling around down there. What a muggle grandmother could possibly do in a situation like this was lost on him, but he said nothing.

“Ok, your room in five,” Sokka said diplomatically. Katara nodded, and she and Aang disappeared into her bedroom as Zuko followed Sokka back into his, in shock.

“I only just got out there,” Sokka whispered once they were inside. He began gathering his sheets from his mattress on the floor and motioned for Zuko to do the same. “I heard arguing downstairs… Andy and dad were going at it. I missed a lot of the conversation though. Aang looked pale as hell, so I knew something was wrong. Then Katara got up, and dad told Aang to come upstairs. He told me he’d go with Andy, ‘cause there were a lot of Muggle officials at this thing, too. I think maybe that’s what Andy was yelling about. He didn’t seem happy that dad was going.” Sokka let out a bitter laugh Zuko didn’t quite understand. “Anyway. Aang’s staying with us tonight.”

“In Katara’s room?”

“Yeah, you and me, too. C’mon, help me with this.”

Sokka had thrown his bed sheets over his shoulder and pushing his mattress onto its side. In surprise, Zuko helped him carry the mattress from Sokka’s room into Katara’s.

Zuko hadn’t been in Katara’s room up until now. In fact, he’d barely even caught a glimpse of it, even though it was right next to Sokka’s. The door was always closed, no matter if Katara was in or out. Zuko wondered if this was a practice she had adopted since he had arrived, or if it had always been this way. Somehow, the latter seemed less probable.

The walls were painted the same blue as Sokka’s, and the furniture was the same, Zuko noted, but arranged in a different way and made completely her own. While Sokka’s room was plagued with super-hero figurines and football and Quidditch memorabilia, Katara’s was more… well, Katara. A Gryffindor Banner hung over her bed and a huge poster of an ocean scene was stuck to the far wall. Books and notepads lay everywhere, and Zuko even stepped on one of her pens on the way in.

She rushed to help them with the mattress, Aang standing to one side awkwardly unsure of how to join them. There was already a mattress on the floor, and they lay Sokka’s one beside it, creating a large square of bed on the floor beside Katara’s. Once the beds were made and Sokka sat cross-legged in the middle of the square, Katara quickly kicked a stray bra under her shelves. Aang averted his eyes, which meant he had seen this too. The occasion was too sombre for him to blush as he usually did, and he simply sat beside Sokka and looked at his hands.

Zuko understood that the three boys would be sharing the bed square together, Aang in the middle. This was the biggest sleepover he’d had since Azula made him join her, Mai and Ty Lee when they were nine, only to tease him relentlessly and give him nightmares. Even then they each had their own beds, however, his mother having summoned four of them from the spare guest rooms into the living room. Now he was cramped into a tiny bedroom in Muggle London with people his father would most certainly not approve of. That thought of his father stirred something in him. Surely his father didn’t have anything to do with this… 

Just then, an owl tapped on Katara’s window.

Sokka almost jumped out of his skin, but Katara simply trod across the mattress-floor and opened her window.

“Who’s that from? Dad?” Sokka asked, not seeming too convinced by his own theory.

“No,” Katara said, reading it. Then, “Apparently, the whole of the Houses of Parliament have been frozen.”

“ _ Frozen _ ? Like the movie,  _ Frozen _ ?”

“No,” Katara replied patiently. “It’s like… stuck. In time.”

“Stuck in time?” Aang asked, stunned.

“Says who?”

Katara turned slightly red. “Do you remember Haku?”

“I remember he’s way too old for you,” Sokka said, but Katara ignored him. “Last time I saw him he had a moustache.”

“We’re pen pals, and he’s working for the Auror Department now. As soon as I heard something was wrong, I sent him an owl.”

“He sure wrote back to you pretty fast,” Aang said, although he didn’t sound accusatory.

“He knows Toph, and knows we’re worried about her.”

“What’s the word on Toph, then?” Sokka asked. Katara looked back down at the letter.

“Apparently, she was outside when... this happened.”

“Oh, thank Merlin,” Sokka said.

“Outside?” Zuko asked. He was unable to stop himself.

“Yes… it doesn’t say where exactly she was, just that she wasn’t affected.”

“What?” Aang asked when there was nothing but silence.

“Well…” Katara said.

“It’s a bit weird,” Sokka finished. “Maybe.”

“Maybe,” Zuko echoed.

“You… you think  _ Toph _ had something to do with this?” Aang asked, bewildered. It was a ridiculous notion.

“No,” Sokka said. “Just… it’s a bit funky, you know? It could just be a coincidence.”

“It is a coincidence,” Aang insisted. “What are you even- Toph can’t possibly… I can’t believe you guys.”

“Not Toph,” Zuko said. The group looked at him. He licked his lips, then shrugged and looked away. “I don’t think Toph has anything to do with it.”

“Thank you!” Aang said.

“What else does the letter say?” Sokka asked his sister.

It said that it had been a while since anyone got to the scene, because almost everyone on guard who would set off any sort of alarm was affected, too. Nobody knew what curse or charm had been used yet, but were in the process of finding out. Curse-breakers had been called in from abroad to help.

It was pretty serious stuff, and it made Zuko feel ill.

Nothing happened in the next few hours. The four of them studied the letter and waited for Hakoda to return. But Hakoda didn’t. At six in the morning, Aang was snoring to Zuko’s left, and Katara had her back turned to the three of them, either sleeping or staring at the wall.

There was a light knock on the door, and Sokka shot upright from the other side of Aang. Zuko propped himself up on his elbow in time for Gran Gran to open the door and look upon the scene in front of her in resignation. At one point during the night, the boys had pulled covers over themselves, and Aang was still in his clothes although he had taken off his coat at one point. It was strewn over the desk chair, the zipper dangling over his sleeping head.

“Your father sent one of those ugly fire-messages. He won’t be back until late today. If the rest of you aren’t asleep soon, I’ll knock you out myself.”

“Thanks, Gran Gran,” Sokka said.

Gran Gran said nothing, just looked pointedly at her granddaughter, who was still awake after all, and closed the door again.

 

Zuko awakens a couple of hours later being weighed down by a couple of warm limbs. Someone was breathing into the crook of his neck. When he opened his eyes, he almost had a heart attack then and there.

Grey light of day was shining through the deep blue curtains that shielded Katara’s window. At some point in the morning, Aang had left the room. He couldn’t see if Katara’s bed was still occupied from his current position, but he could see that Sokka’s arm and leg were thrown over him, Sokka’s face pressed into his neck.

Although he was wide awake, he decided that the best tactic would be to pretend to still be asleep until Sokka woke up himself. He’d be saving Sokka from the embarrassment, that way. Pretending to be asleep was the noble thing to do. 

So, he closed his eyes and concentrated on slowing his breathing. This proved to be a difficult task, because each time Sokka’s breath hit the skin on Zuko’s neck, his heartbeat stalled. Having Sokka sleep on him was a health risk, and a severe one.

So he tried meditation. Iroh was always going on about meditation. Emptying the mind and all that. Envision a blue pool… And Sokka was in the pool. And he was swimming towards Zuko-

“Boys! Toph and dad are here!”

“Gah!” Sokka yelled, throwing his limbs around as he jolted awake, consequently hitting Zuko in the face. “Oh my god, dude, I’m so sorry!”

Suddenly Sokka was in Zuko’s personal space in a very different capacity, kneeling beside him with his hands floating around Zuko’s face, the pained expression on his face nothing short of comical.

“It’s fine, it’s nothing,” Zuko said, waving his hands away. “Katara said Toph was here.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sokka said, clearly still in the process of waking up. He stumbled to his feet, the mattress folding under his movements, his hair sticking up in all directions. “Let’s go!”

Zuko got up, too, with the help of Sokka’s hand around his bicep for a fleeting moment, and then the two of them headed downstairs where there was quite a lot of commotion. They found everyone in the kitchen, Gran Gran and Aang putting food on plates as Toph sat looking exhausted at the kitchen table. She was allowing Katara’s hand on her back, which was a definite sign that things were not alright.

Hakoda met Sokka and Zuko in the kitchen doorway and gave them a quick, quiet rundown of the situation.

“I’m back here for lunch, nothing else. The Ministry realized that I actually was of some use to them halfway through last night.” He rubbed his forehead, looking older than Zuko had ever seen him. There were dark circles under his eyes, and the sunny disposition he had worn up until now was nowhere to be seen. “Your friend Toph has obviously got nothing to do with it, so I’ve been allowed to bring her here for now. There are aurors around the house to make sure the family’s safe, which I think is a bit excessive, but they’re under the impression people might come to look for her.”

Zuko was surprised Hakoda was being so upfront with Sokka like this. And him. He was used to his father’s private councils, councils behind locked doors that he hadn’t been allowed to join until he was twelve. And that hadn’t ended very well for him.

“People?” Sokka asked. “Where are her parents?”

“That’s the thing. They’re missing.”

“Missing?” Sokka said, but a quiet resolve settled in Zuko’s gut. He had known this was coming, since they’d heard Toph was safe. “Missing how?” Sokka pressed. “Are they not inside the… you know?”

“They’re not in the Parliament, no. And they haven’t been to their residence since they left the party. Toph has said that she has no idea of where they are, and I believe her. They let her out because the Beifongs have a record of being particularly secretive, and Fiona vouched for her.”

“Well, yeah, there’s no way Toph’s involved.”

“The idea is that her parents might be. So she stays with us for the time-being. But don’t open the door to anyone while I’m gone. For your safety and… Zuko.”

Zuko blanched under the older man’s gaze. His blue eyes were the same as Sokka’s, and something in them made Zuko believe that he knew everything Zuko was trying to hide.

“The Ministry doesn’t know you’re here, but of course, Andy and Fiona do. Hopefully, they won’t alert the higher-ups, because if they do, either you or Toph will have to go. With things as they are now, no one will be too happy about a Beifong sharing a roof with a Hamada. Also, you may get a visit from Fiona. I told her that you were with us the entire time, but she thinks you might know something. If you do, of course, I would ask you set forward, but tell me first, alright? Fiona’s an okay Auror, but she can get carried away. You’re not to be on your own with her, understand?”

Zuko swallowed, and nodded. There was the briefest of pauses, in which perhaps Hakoda was giving Zuko time to confess. But Zuko found he couldn’t speak at all.

“Zuko has nothing to do with this,” Sokka interjected, with the same certainty he had defended Toph with. Zuko looked at him in shock.

“I never said he was, son. But he may have some information, whether he’s aware of it or not. Just think on it, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Zuko said. Hakoda’s lips thinned, but he said nothing. “I-I should go back to Hogwarts,” Zuko added, straightening. “It’s important that Toph be here, with all of you. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“If he goes, I’m going,” Sokka said, and Hakoda gave him a tired look.

“That won’t be necessary for now. Nothing’s decided yet. Zuko, could you sit down for lunch? I need to have a quick talk with my son.”

“Uh, of course.”

Zuko joined the others at the table as Sokka got steered into the living room by his father. That didn’t look good. Zuko had messed things up.

“G’mornin’, Zuko,” Toph grumbled, and Katara looked his way. Had she seen her brother thrown over him when she’d woken them up? Merlin, he hoped she hadn’t.

“How are you, Toph?”

“Oh, just fantastic. My parents are missing and the wizarding world is in shambles. I’ve really never been better.”

“Does anyone have an idea of where they might be?”

Toph pushed her fingers into her cheeks, moving her face around.

“Fled the country, is what everyone thinks. You know, I wish that were true. But it’s not, ‘cause I know they’d rather die than leave their poor, blind daughter unattended.”

She dropped her hands, silver eyes wide, realizing what she had just said.

“I mean-“

“We know,” Katara said softly. “I’m sure they’ll be found soon. Pretty much the entire Ministry is looking for them.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel any better,” Toph murmured, hugging herself.

“Move aside!” Gran Gran announced, slamming a pile of plates onto the table. “Pass these around!”

Sokka sat down beside Zuko then, face beat red, and took a plate from his sister.

“How’re you holding up, Toph?” he asked, not meeting Zuko’s eye.

“I just went through this. The world is ending, I feel terrific. How come you guys weren’t up yet, anyway? What were you doing up there?”

“Sleeping!” Sokka said quickly. Zuko gave him an odd look as Toph just blinked.

“Oh, boy, I do not wanna unpack  _ that _ .”

“Gran Gran, Aang, need any extra hands?” Katara said loudly, jumping to her feet, for clearly she didn’t want to unpack that either.

Lunch was a quick affair. Leftovers from yesterday's feast were served reheated, alongside a lot of bread and cheese. Hakoda sat on Zuko’s other side, and Zuko couldn’t help but feel as intimidated as he had the first day he was here. It was as if the past week hadn’t happened. Everyone ate in silence, and soon Hakoda was getting to his feet and kissing his children goodbye. He gave Zuko a look that Zuko couldn’t decipher, and stepped into the fireplace.

“I didn’t know you guys were connected to the flu network,” Zuko said once he was gone, enveloped by green flames.

“It comes in handy,” Sokka shrugged by way of explanation. Katara was poking at her food, looking uncomfortable. “You okay?” Sokka asked her in his big-brother voice.

Katara shrugged a shoulder. “It’s just… it’s bad. The fact that muggles are involved. Whoever’s in charge of what happened didn’t care about keeping us hidden. It doesn’t feel right.”

Zuko swallowed. Katara was right -- he shared her uneasiness. Nobody had claimed the attack yet, but had simply sat back and let chaos unfold, in an important Muggle setting of all places. The disregard for the magical world’s secrecy was highly troubling.

“What have they done to keep it quiet so far?” Zuko asked.

“Well… I know there was a Prime Minister double, someone transfigured to look like him about London. And all the victim’s families have been notified…”

“Will they be okay?” Sokka asked.

Katara looked down. “ _ The Prophet _ said they might not be. But, you know. It’s  _ The Prophet _ .”

“Can I have a look at it?”

“It’s on the counter.” Sokka spun out of his chair to grab it and helped the rest of them put away the dishes as he read. Every so often he would say something like, “So Harry Potter and his friends were there… are there,” or, “how could it be an inside job if everyone inside is frozen, too? I suppose someone could have volunteered, but still…”

Soon, the children moved back up to Katara’s room, where Toph lay down on Katara’s bed and the rest of them sat around, uncertainty eating away at the lot of them. Aang was reading one of Sokka’s comics and Katara was doing homework when Toph suddenly hit the wall with a resounding thud. Although she was small, she was the strongest person Zuko had ever been punched in the arm by.

“Why would anyone frame my parents?” she demanded of the ceiling. “They don’t  _ do _ anything!”

Although nobody said a word, Katara, Zuko now noticed, was watching Zuko carefully. He could feel her stare burning into the side of his face.

“That’s not completely true, is it?” she said. Now all eyes were on him.

This. This is what he had been dreading the moment he stepped into the Waters’ home.

“Listen,” he began, but Katara’s glare cut him off. 

“If they’re in danger and you know why, Toph has a right to know.”

“No, that’s not- that’s not how it works,” Zuko said, shaking his head. “No, Katara. You don’t get to decide stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what?” Toph asked in a small voice. She was sitting up now, facing Zuko’s voice. Zuko pursed his lips.

“Dude,” Sokka said softly. “If you know something...”

Zuko kept his eyes on Toph. He wanted to pretend that this was selfless. That he hadn’t spoken for her own good. Not that he was putting off reminding his friends exactly who his family was and what they did. Who he was as a result of them.

“I can take it,” Toph said.

Zuko nodded, for it was now out of his hands. He took a deep breath, and said, “Your dad... kind of sells weapons. To my dad.”

This was met with silence. 

“Weapons?” Aang asked.

“Yeah, well, you know my dad. He has… people, you know. Who work for him. I don’t know many specifics -- I swear, I don’t -- but recently -- before I left -- he was working on something. He inherited it all from my Grandfather, Azulong, and has slowly been getting rid of those who were still loyal to him.”

“You’re talking about The Black Snake,” Sokka said. 

“Yes. Yes I am.”

The Black Snake was the secret society many people had heard of, but had little evidence of. They had been around since before the Dark Lord’s time, stepped back during the war, and they were still in operation to this day. Zuko’s father, Ozai Hamada, was the current leader of this society. Once upon a time, Zuko was supposed to be his heir.

“The Black Snake believe that there’s a different magic, an old magic, that the magical government have hidden away. Not dark magic, necessarily. There are places you can find that, if you look hard enough. But this old magic is something else, something more spiritual. Wandless magic, unbound to anything and everything.” He took a breath. “Father never talked to us about it, but Azula was always listening in on his… council meetings. Today, they believe that the Ministry know about this magic. I… I don’t know if father has anything to do with the attack, but he might. Toph, your father… Before I left, he and my father were having… problems. I can’t be sure of what they were, but I saw him at our manor one day. He looked awful.”

“Yeah, well, this is where you’re wrong. My dad doesn’t know a thing about weapons, or fighting, or any of that stuff. He’s pathetic.”

“I’m not saying he knows how to use them. But he does own a warehouse, somewhere in muggle territory. He’s been melding muggle instruments with magic for years now. Although my father isn’t fond of muggles, he has a huge interest in their instruments. They’re good to use on non-magical people without the Ministry getting wind of it, too.”

The silence that followed was stifling. Aang, Sokka and Katara were all staring at Zuko, mouths slightly agape. Only Toph seemed to be truly digesting the information he’d presented them with, but she didn’t seem happy about any of it.

“Toph,” Zuko began, “I’m sorry-”

“What about mom? How is she involved?”

“She helps keep the operation under wraps. If they’re missing, it can mean two things: either they’re being framed for what just happened and they’re on the run, or they’re in my father’s custody.”

“In his  _ custody _ ?” Katara repeated. She sounded venomous.

“I don’t know where,” Zuko said. “I’m sorry-”

“You couldn’t have said anything earlier?” she demanded.

“My Uncle said something, and look what happened to him!”

“So you’re scared.”

“I-” Zuko began, but he faltered. He  _ was _ scared. But he realized that, to Katara, that wasn’t an excuse.

“Excuse me. I need to go get some air.” And with that, she walked over the mattress and out of the room. Toph’s lips were pursed together, and seconds after Katara had left, she threw herself back onto the bed, curled up into a ball. Aang was still staring at Zuko like he’d grown an extra head and Sokka… 

Zuko realized that he should have been the one to leave.

“Sorry,” he murmured, getting to his feet. 

“Wait, Zuko,” Sokka said, wrapping his hand around Zuko’s wrist. Zuko gently tugged his hand away.

“I think I’ll have a shower,” he told the floor, and left the room without another look at the people he had begun to call his friends.

 

It was hard to breathe in the shower, and Zuko spent much longer in the bathroom than he previously had. The mirror was fogged up from the steam, and he preferred it that way. With a towel around his waist, he fell under the realization that he hadn’t brought a change of clothes into the bathroom with him.

Under the hope that Sokka’s bedroom was still unoccupied, he ventured out into the hallway cradling his used pajamas in his arms. Katara’s bedroom door was ajar, but so was Sokka’s, and when Zuko got close enough to push it open, he stopped cold.

“-yes, but what I’m saying is he doesn’t  _ do _ anything!” Katara was saying, her voice full of frustration. “He  _ said _ he loved his uncle but he's in prison and he's innocent and Zuko wont do anything about it!”

“That’s not fair-” Sokka replied, but that only seemed to anger Katara further.

“Would you  _ stop _ defending him! He’s not a  _ child _ ! He  _ has _ to take responsibility-”

“For stuff his dad’s done?”

There was a moment’s pause. Then, in a deadly voice, Katara said, “You know I’m right. And I know why you’re acting like I’m not. I’m not stupid.”

“Tara-”

“Sokka.”

Zuko didn’t have time to jump out of the way as Katara came out of her brother’s bedroom, purposefully knocking into Zuko as she left for her own. She didn’t even look him in the eye.

“She’ll… she’ll get over it,” Sokka said from inside the bedroom, seeing the shock on Zuko’s face. He didn’t sound very convincing.

Zuko couldn’t help but feel that if she didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to blame her. Not at all.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa, hey, you're still here? hello! ahh im so sorry im so bad at updating this fic. the story with this chapter is i had written 70% of it already but i hated it! so i rewrote it and here it is, in its very late glory!  
> thank you for sticking with me cuz im the worst, i hope you enjoyed the update! you guys really are what keep me writing...
> 
> also ps thanks to bff artemis for helpin me work out some things for this fic ily


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